Essential Wolverine volume 2

Essential Wolverine volume 2 consists of issues #24-47. The writing sees the end of Peter David's run plus a later fill-in issue, a brief run by (Mary) Jo Duffy and the start of Larry Hama's long run. The art includes a long stretch by Marc Silvestri, plus individual issues by Gene Colan, John Buscema, Klaus Janson, Barry Kitson, Bill Jaaska, Larry Stroman and Gerald DeCaire.

Coming from the early years of the Essentials, it's unsurprising that this volume restricts itself solely to Wolverine's main series and does not include his strips from Marvel Comics Presents, with the most notable storyline, "Weapon X", running during the same period. Understandably there's too much Marvel Comics Presents material for later editions to even try to correct the omission, but nor has the series been touched by the Essentials and given its own volume, so once again key Wolverine material has to be sought elsewhere, including a major part of his origin. Fortunately there are no overt references to the Marvel Comics Presents strip, and Wolverine's mysterious past often allows for introductions out of the blue so return appearances by characters introduced in the strip don't stick out, so on a raw reading it's possible to not even realise there were other adventures published that are not included here. But once that awareness is there the lost opportunity stands out all too well.

For those reading just the issues collected here, Wolverine's background remains mysterious to the readers and, at times, to the man himself, not helped by different writers seemingly taking separate approaches to just how much he appears to remember about it. In issue #25 we get offered a possible glimpse at part of his origin. Whilst guarding and babysitting the son of a crimelord, he tells a bedtime story about a Canadian boy who was cast out into the wilderness for being small and weak, but grew up with wolverines and learned to fight when trappers came. It's clear from the pictures just who the boy is intended to be, but is the story meant to be imaginary or is it in fact a true account of Wolverine's past? Later in issue #34 Wolverine thinks to himself that he can't remember a lot of his past and doesn't know how he came to be wandering around the Canadian wilderness. However an old Mountie slowly realises that Wolverine is both a ferocious corporal he served under in the parachute divisions during the D-Day landings and also a stranger he long ago shot at in the wilderness, mistaking him for the beast known as the "Hunter in the Darkness". Subsequently we discover Wolverine is familiar to some participants in the Spanish Civil War but he can't quite remember it until he and Puck get thrown back in time to it (with the complication that Wolverine starts partaking in events and photographs that Puck can't recall him being originally there for). Then Sabretooth claims to be Wolverine's father though a blood test soon disproves it, yet according to Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. the claim is based upon a genuine belief, though he won't elaborate on this. Elsewhere issue #26 sees him relive part of his days in Japan and track down the murderer of an old friend. The whole result is a character who remains an enigma but it's not too clear if there's an actual overall plan that the writers are working to, or if they're just tossing out random ideas that will ultimately not all match up.

Peter David's two issues both have the aura of fillers, rather than any substantial conclusion to his run or latter-day revisitation. The first is a piece of macabre humour as an assassin called the "Snow Queen" finds her plans disrupted when a child steals her briefcase, leading to a chase through the back streets of Madripoor and a grim discovery at the end. The second is at the far end of the volume and sees Logan tackling a drug crazed mad man in suburbia who needs to be neutralised, whilst remembering how he and Silver Fox had a dog which caught rabies and had to be put down but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. Jo Duffy's work also starts in filler mode, even though it drops in pieces about Wolverine's past in both Japan and the Canadian wilderness, but then switches into another feature common to the era - the multi-part "biweekly" saga when a book's frequency was briefly increased to twice a month (perhaps that's why there's no annual here). "The Lazarus Project" winds up serving as the winding down of the title's "Madripoor era", throwing in a guest appearance by Karma of the New Mutants and the writing out of Jessica Drew and Lindsay McCabe. The story sees Wolverine briefly lose his memory though in the process he experiences the atrocity of a village being wiped out for an utterly insignificant McGuffin.

The arrival of Larry Hama for what would be quite a long run sees a bold shift in the title's focus, with the Madripoor setting and the various supporting characters rapidly abandoned, albeit with a final brief storyline that also takes in a trip to Japan. Taking their place are adventures set mainly back in North America with an increased use of guest stars. Fortunately there aren't any crossovers within this volume, but it feels like the series is being dragged into being a mere offshoot of the main X-Men titles (the last issue in the volume is from about the time when a second X-Men series was launched) rather than continuing to carve out its own distinctive niche. It's a pity, but perhaps Hama didn't have enough confidence in the Madripoor set-up to make it continue to work. Or maybe reader demand wanted Wolverine on more traditional territory. Equally Hama may have been wary of repeating himself. By this time he had about eight years of the G.I. Joe books under his belt and he may have been conscious of having already depicted a man with ninja connections and a mysterious past so there was a risk of turning Wolverine into another Snake-Eyes. Instead Hama's run, or at least the early part reproduced here, takes the series back into the superhero mainstream.

That's not to say there aren't some occasional detours, such as "Blood and Claws" which sees Wolverine, Lady Deathstrike and Puck (from Alpha Flight) temporarily thrown back in time to the Spanish Civil War, with the complications that they are reliving at least Puck's past. Lady Deathstrike remains a constant theme back in the present day, with her Reavers preparing a trap with two robots, one a duplicate of Wolverine dubbed "Albert" and the other a five year old girl called "Elsie Dee" who is largely comprised of explosives. This leads into a lengthy story as the two robots gain increasing intelligence and start to think for themselves, with Elsie Dee coming to admire Wolverine even though she is programmed to get close to him and then automatically detonate the explosives within her. Both Albert and Elsie survive seeming destruction to keep coming back. Just to add to the complications are the return of Sabretooth and the appearance of Cable which is not at all a sales chaser at a time when he was one of the hottest X-Men characters and giving Wolverine a run for his money as the pre-eminent man with a mysterious past. The whole thing is interspersed with encounters with the Morlocks as well as with various one off killers. There's a mad man who enjoys torturing animals until Logan sets a real wolverine on him, and another who murders several pregnant women having discovered one of them will give birth to a baby who will grow up to be something special. On a different level is Molly Doolin, the vengeance seeking daughter of the Canadian Mountie who died pursuing the "Hunter in the Darkness".

Puck, Storm, Forge and Jubilee all make recurring appearances throughout these issues, but there's no real indigenous supporting cast introduced and developed to replace those from the Madripoor days. We're left with just Wolverine himself, a man with a limited past that generates some interest but which can also limit the opportunity for actual development since the past isn't being properly explored here (or the origin of his adamantium being explored elsewhere referenced here). Instead the main focus is on multi-part adventures with lots of action rather than a great deal of development. It was an early sign of the decompression movement that would see comics drawn out without a great deal actually happening in them. This volume also comes from an era when artists were becoming ever more prominent and at times comics slowed stories down just to emphasise the art. It's hard to resist feeling this was the forerunner of the Image style when Marc Silvestri would be one of that company's seven founders.

These issues were originally published in the early 1990s, which was the time when I first discovered Marvel superhero comics - perhaps a slightly later arrival than many but I plead the mitigating circumstances that Marvel UK had largely dropped out of superheroes for four years, focusing instead on licensed toy and TV tie-ins and that Marvel US titles had no distribution that I knew of in my home town (my local newsagent didn't stock any comics at all). I should in theory take to this volume with all the instinctive loyalty that most people have to their personal "Golden Age" in just about anything, with it being the time when they first got drawn in. But instead I find this volume rather washes me over. Perhaps it was because the comics market was simply so large at the time and Wolverine is a distinct niche appeal that didn't draw me in then and so these issues evoke no nostalgia whatsoever now.

It's a pity because whilst there are some good moments and issues within this volume - my favourite is issue #34 with the hunt in the Canadian wilderness - the overall volume sees the series dump its unique setting and tone in favour of a rather generic style. The result is a rather generic and less than spectacular run. Still it does get bonus points for being a series from the era that doesn't get sucked in to endless crossovers.

Essential Avengers volume 2

Essential Avengers volume 2 contains issues #25-46 plus King-Size Special #1 (the annual by another name) and also, in early editions, the story from Tales to Astonish #27 that introduce Henry Pym, later Ant-Man. The first half of the volume and the Tales to Astonish story are written by Stan Lee and the second half and the special are by Roy Thomas. Most of the issues and the special are drawn by Don Heck, with the last few by John Buscema and one by George Bell. The Tales to Astonish story is drawn by Jack Kirby.

This volume sees a continuation of the general problem that the Avengers are a club of heroes assembled for no particular reason, though as time passes they accumulate more and more ties that keep them together. Within these pages are the first examples of several longstanding themes that recur time and again throughout the history of the team's membership. There's the first return of former members when the Wasp and Giant-Man come back, albeit with the latter now using the name "Goliath". There's the first cases of heroes hanging around with the Avengers without actually holding formal membership, with Hercules eventually granted it after several issues but the Black Widow instead choosing to retire. There are extended absences for individual members as first the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver go to sort out their powers and then later Captain America spends some time sorting out matters in his own strip. There's the first great reunion in the annual as "the Original Avengers join Today's Avengers", although with the Hulk absent it boils down to just Iron Man and Thor being drawn into a single great adventure with the regular team. And we see further confirmation of Captain America's central role in the team when he is unanimously chosen as the chairman for this reunion, being the link between the original and current team.

By this point the team's pretensions to being the Marvel version of the Justice League of America have been abandoned. With Marvel already having prominent teams of superheroes in the form of the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, plus big name heroes like the Hulk and Spider-Man whose set-up made it impossible to slot them into this sort of team, it was simply impossible to assemble all the company's big name heroes into a single team. So instead the focus was shifted to mainly featuring characters who lacked their own strip and develop them in their own way. Captain America is still around as the lynch pin of the team but at times he's absent because of events over in Tales of Suspense. Notably by the time Giant-Man/Goliath and the Wasp return, their own strip in Tales to Astonish had ended, thus freeing them up to be developed here. Goliath gets some good material at first as he discovers he's trapped in a ten foot tall form, unable to change size without killing himself. This leads him to search for a cure, eventually enlisting the aid of scientist Bill Foster to strengthen blood cells.

Not all the tales show such advancement, and at times it seems as though the series is wading through leftover ideas from elsewhere. The very first issue sees the team's first encounter with Doctor Doom (at least until the retroactive one-shot Avengers #1&1/2 was published over thirty years later), but his primary motivation is just to impress the Fantastic Four and use the Avengers as hostages to lure in his most regular foes. The issue does once more raise the idea that Doom and Rang/Rama-Tut could somehow be the same person at different points in time, but it's an idea that has never worked for me and I think this is the last time it was raised. The next two issues see the team defeat an attempt by Attuma to flood the world and so once again it feels like the Avengers are mopping up leftovers from Fantastic Four, and this is just reinforced by an interlude involving the Human Torch's old foe, the Beetle.

The series does pick up a bit and start developing some of its own creations and introducing a few more foes, beginning with the introduction of the Collector. As is often the case with big name villains introduced in this era, his appearance and motivations are much tamer than he would go on to be. Here he could be a human for all that's revealed about him and the difference that it makes. This is followed by the first regular Avengers appearance of the Black Widow, brainwashed into once more serving the Soviet Union and now recruiting both the Swordsman and Power Man to battle the Avengers and try to recruit Hawkeye. Then we get a slight reversion to old Fantastic Four ideas in the form of a rather dull tale of a power struggle within a lost civilisation in South America, but it's hard to care for either the Keeper of the Flame or Prince Rey as they struggle over a cobalt flame.

We then get what is probably the best remembered tale in this volume as the Avengers battle against the Sons of the Serpent, a thinly disguised parody of the Ku Klux Klan. It's a story that puts the Avengers through some hard choices when the Sons take Captain America hostage and try to recruit the Avengers to their side. It's also one of the most overt examples of the series reflecting turbulence in the wider world, and it's to the credit of Lee and Heck that we are never left in any doubt whose side the Avengers are on even when Goliath has them pretend to support the Sons or when Captain America is impersonated. However the story ducks out on an uncomfortable truth by revealing the Supreme Serpent to be foreign Communist General Chen, rather than showing how such hatred can be home grown. And under a new writer the series is more casual when it comes to apartheid South Africa which is briefly visited in the annual, although it's not explicitly named as such but the presence of diamonds and what appear to be a sea of white faces are telling. Though the country primarily serves as a backdrop to Thor and Hawkeye's battle with the Living Laser, it feels rather casual to pass through a country with such practices and fail to even say anything. Equality is not something that only matters in a single country.

The story also sees a major step forward as the Black Widow comes to the Avengers' aid, having finally turned against the Soviets. From this point onwards she is on the path to becoming one of the most prominent of Marvel's female heroes, though it's a complex path with S.H.I.E.L.D. intervening to send her on a mission to China where it appears she has defected once more. The Avengers are mixed in their reaction to their new ally, with Goliath reluctant to see the Avengers turn into a "rest home for retired villains", but eventually they get to the point of considering her membership though her China mission and injuries prevent it from happening at this stage.

As with a number of other Silver Age Essential volumes, this one shows the end of Stan Lee's run on the title, with Roy Thomas succeeding him here, and once again Lee bows out on a cliffhanger in a rather underwhelming adventure. Although the Living Laser would go on to be a significant recurring foe, coming back even here in the annual, his first story sees him motivated by a romantic crush and feels rather tame. Had Lee left just one issue earlier he would have departed with the climax of the first Sons of the Serpent storyline, a much more impressive note to go out on. The Living Laser story also appears to have been extended at short notice as issue #33 ends with the caption "Next: Goliath changes!" but this doesn't happen until #35.

Roy Thomas's run begins by concluding the Living Laser story with the added twist of him seeking fame by aiming to help a revolution in Costa Verde, a Latin American military dictatorship. The story ends with both sides defeated and the remnants of the army declaring a democracy, but more notable is Captain America's declaration to the army "We wish in no way to interfere in your country's private matters!" Coming in late 1966 it's a surprisingly early declaration of non-interventionism, even if delivered at a point when the country's immediate problems are being seemingly solved. The subject of intervention in other countries is not something that can be easily debated in a few panels, but such declarations can at times feel like an over casual dismissal of problems and suffering around the world. On a lighter note the story sees Goliath regain the power to change size, having sufficiently healed his body. And there's a fun moment for continuity buffs as Captain America's shield gets destroyed by lasers and he has to resort to a new one - try matching that with the later position that his shield is indestructible and he's had it more or less since 1941.

The run continues with another forgettable set of foes in the form of the alien Ixar and his robotic Ultroids, though the resolution when the Black Widow exploits her non-Avengers status to threaten Ixar's life is a telling sign of how far she still has to travel. Then we get the arrival of Hercules, initially under the spell of the Enchantress, and he seems to be a substitute for Thor. There follows a brief encounter with the Mad Thinker, a further foe from Fantastic Four, and his brie team of henchmen the " Triumvirate of Terror", consisting of Hammerhead, Piledriver and Thunderboot but none are any relations to any others who may have used those names. In an epilogue to a storyline in Tales of Suspense, the team clash with the Sub-Mariner as they search for the Cosmic Cube, which ends up thrown away by the Mole Man. Yet another pair of Fantastic Four foes appear in the form of Diablo and Dragon Man, with the latter seemingly destroyed, and one is wondering if the team will get any big battles with more personalised foes.

It's not a long wait. Issue #43 introduces the Red Guardian, a Communist conscious counterpart to Captain America in every way, though curiously he's developed by the Chinese rather than the Soviets. In a fierce battle he nearly defeats Captain America but the latter is more experienced and only subdued by outside intervention, a point that annoys the Red Guardian's honour. In a twist he's revealed to be the previously assumed dead husband of the Black Widow and he meets his end nobly, sacrificing himself to save her. Still the story gives them both a degree of redemption, even though the Black Widow ends up injured and briefly retires from the costume instead of accepting Avengers membership. The final couple of regular issues see old foes from individual member's strips, with the Super-Adaptoid from Captain America's strip in Tales of Suspense now finally clashing with the whole Avengers, then Goliath's old foe the Human Top returns with the new name of Whirlwind.

The annual also features some old foes as the Mandarin assembles the Enchantress, the Executioner, the Living Laser, the Swordsman and Power Man as part of a plan to conquer the world. This story is the one most like the standard format for the contemporary Justice League of America as the threat comes in three less forms, resulting in the heroes splitting into separate teams to go to different locations to tackle each part before reuniting for the showdown conclusion. The addition of Iron Man and Thor just adds to the JLA influence as it results in something resembling Earth's Mightiest Heroes (a phrase not yet in use). As a one-off celebratory piece it works, but it's a good thing the regular series didn't get caught up in such a formula.

Throughout the volume there are various signs that the Avengers are all developing in different ways, though some more than others. Most notably Hawkeye is fast maturing and coming to respect Captain America even more, getting beyond the angry hot head he can be at times. However Quicksilver is increasingly concerned about attitudes to mutants and his thoughts are getting steadily more angry. The Wasp who returns to the team is more mature than before, contributing more in action as an equal member and rarely commenting on her male colleagues, though there is a lapse to her older habits when Iron Man and Thor briefly return. This is a team that feels ever more coherent and strong, showing why they stay together even if why they're there remains a bit of a mystery.

Overall this volume is okay, but not particularly exciting. It's critical in showing the development of the team and the on-off nature of its membership but beyond that it doesn't really excite that much or contain any issues that particularly stand out. Too often it seems to draw on the entrails from Fantastic Four rather than continuing to develop its own strong set of recurring foes and situations.

Essential Ghost Rider volume 2

Essential Ghost Rider volume 2 contains issues #21 to #50 of the series. Bonus material includes Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Ghost Rider, Doctor Druid, Doctor Strange and the Night Rider. The writing sees a succession of runs of steadily increasing lengths from Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and Michael Fleisher, with Don Glut contributing one script. Most of the art is by Don Perlin, with an early run by Don Heck and issues by Gil Kane, Tom Sutton, Steve Leialoha and Carmine Infantino.

The same year that this volume was released also saw the launch of the first Ghost Rider movie, in my opinion the best one (not that there's a great deal of competition for that distinction). Although some of the details of both the origin and the Ghost Rider mythology were altered, it remained faithful to the basic concepts and gave some memorable moments, including a teaming of Johnny Blaze and Carter Slade, the original Ghost Rider. So too does this volume. Indeed there's much here that informs the basic backdrop of the film.

The early issues wrap up Johnny's career as a Hollywood stuntman and then he goes out on his own, riding across the West like some latter-day wandering cowboy, moving from situation to situation without ever setting down roots or growing a new supporting cast. Most of the existing characters are left in Hollywood to carry on as before. Also fading from his life with the end of their series are the Champions, though they've generally only made cameos here. Although he can still make all manner of stunt jumps when he needs to, the stunt performances are largely ignored to the point that people wonder what's happened to him. At about the same time that in the real world Evel Knievel was appearing in his final stunt show (although he didn't actually jump in it), Johnny is challenged by Flagg Fargo for his title of stunt champion of the United States and narrowly loses. It's a steady but strong shift in the character, reinforcing his tragic loneliness.

With just four Essential volumes and a total of eighty-eight issues (excluding crossovers, post series appearances and standby fill-ins only used later on but including the initial seven issues run in Marvel Spotlight), it's tempting to see Ghost Rider as a closed saga, with a definite beginning, middle and end. On the face of it this volume may be the longest section but also the least involved, with few of the big moments in his life. However at a more subtle level there's steady development throughout the volume as the relationship between the human Johnny and his demonic side evolves, first as Johnny discovers he can now transform at will and then as the demon increasingly takes over when in skeletal form. On more than one occasion the two are detached, whether because Johnny's spirit is briefly transferred to another human's body or because a magician separates the two or because Johnny has temporary amnesia and consequently is unaware of his demonic form, who in turn finds Johnny's mind is closed to it. More and more Johnny finds he cannot control his demonic side, who often resorts to ever more vicious methods, and wishes to escape it altogether but keeps finding he cannot.

Of course it's doubtful that any sense of a closed novel was considered at the time, with the continued turnover of writers and a drift into a formula as the wandering Johnny Blaze comes across trouble in one settlement after another. However the series is successful in taking the format and offering numerous twists and turns whilst also taking a big step away from conventional superheroics. This is a saga of a man searching for peace and trying to escape the torment he carries with him but all too often finding that he can't. Often he finds people and an environment where he might settle down and find real happiness, but time and again the curse of the Ghost Rider is there. Whether it's Johnny or his new found friends, especially the succession of women he meets, there is always a realisation that the demon is just too great a barrier to happiness and so he must continue his roaming.

Before that roaming begins, we have the last few issues of Johnny's days in Hollywood and a romantic triangle with Karen Page and Roxanne as he struggles to decide between them even though neither seems to actually want a serious committed relationship. Eventually Johnny realises that it's Roxanne who he wants but by then she has accepted the advances of special effects artist Roger Cross. Meanwhile Karen only wants to be friends. Karen's presence in the early issues may have inspired the use of the Gladiator, also from Daredevil, who is now after a device held by the old Human Torch foe the Eel. When the Eel is murdered, Ghost Rider is accused and Johnny has to clear his name, eventually resorting to using hellfire to arrange a simultaneous appearance to cover up his identity. The mastermind behind the Gladiator and new foe the Water Wizard is the Enforcer, whose identity is one of the weakest intentional mysteries of all time as, apart from a brief red herring suggesting he's movie producer Charles Delazny, it becomes all too easy to spot that he's actually Delazny's son. The remaining Hollywood issues are generally inconsequential with new foe Malice being just a guy in a funny suit with laser and vibration guns, and primarily seeking attention rather than offering a substantial origin. Then there's a fight with Doctor Druid over a misunderstanding about the Ghost Rider's nature. Add in anger and frustration about what he thinks is a serious relationship between Roxanne and Cross, and Johnny now hits the road. Roxanne does try to track him down but in the process she encounters the Orb who inflicts amnesia upon her. Johnny never finds out about this and she is last seen #28 as she accepts the claims of local cowboy Brahma Bill that they are sweethearts and goes off with him. Despite occurring in Roger McKenzie's first issue, Roxanne's situation is never touched upon again in this volume and now truly all the connections have been severed, leaving Johnny as just a man on the road with his demonic side, his clothes and, depending on the issue, a metal bike.

Out on the road Johnny encounters a handful of other heroes, starting with Hawkeye and the time-displaced Two-Gun Kid, followed by an encounter with Doctor Strange in which the magician's old foe Dormammu tries to use Ghost Rider to kill Strange. In the process Johnny finds his mind transferred to Strange's whilst Dormammu controls the Ghost Rider's body. Then at the end of the volume Johnny is thrown back in time and teams up with the Wild West hero the Night Rider against his traditional foe, the Tarantula (no relation to the Spider-Man foes by that name). Neither issue #50 nor the Handbook entry explicitly mention that the Night Rider is the first character to use the name "Ghost Rider", renamed in order to distinguish him from the more famous motorcyclist. (However this new name would prove to be a rather unfortunate choice for a man dressed all in white as it's also name used for members of the Ku Klux Klan.) But there are enough indications that Carter Slade and Johnny Blaze are sufficiently similar to justify the team-up in the double-sized issue.

The limited number of guest stars in this volume may have resulted in a very limited number of options for Handbook entries to fill up the page count, though there were still the alternative options of Hawkeye and the Two-Gun Kid (although the latter didn't have an entry in the original Handbook, from which the four entries are taken, and would have had to have been lifted from the Deluxe Edition where the pro forma is slightly different). But the result is that two of the entries contain major spoilers for later volumes. The Night Rider entry is focused not upon the Wild West hero seen here but on his great great nephew seen in a later issue. (It also doesn't seem to know what an "ancestor" is, using the term to describe the later one.) But the Ghost Rider entry is worse, introducing names such as "Zarathos" and "Mephisto" some time before they turn up in the series (the back cover of the volume also uses "Zarathos" earlier than it should), as well as detailing the backstory of the demonic side of Ghost Rider and giving away what will happen in the issues that reveal much of this information.

The series continues to add a variety of new foes, but few last. There's the Manticore, an agent of the Brand corporation, rivals to Roxxon for corporate plots. Or there's "the boy who lived forever", a long-lived boy called Nathan with advanced mental powers that has enabled him to develop technology but the body and outlook of a boy, flying around in a spaceship with his own robots. The foes closest to the Western tradition come at the end, first as a company is building a dam that will destroy land sacred to Native Americans whilst some of the workers plan to loot a town and flood it. In reaction a traditional Indian spirit called the Manitou is summoned and then Johnny is flung back in time to the 19th century where he proves his true nature.

And then there are the more horror based foes. There are a pair of vampires with many bats at their command. The Bounty Hunter is another agent of the Devil, the ghost of a vicious 19th century bounty hunter who has been tasked to bring in fifty souls in exchange for his freedom. Darker still is "Death", manifest in the form of another skeleton on a motorcycle albeit without the flames. This "Death Ryder" challenges Ghost Rider to a racing and stunt duel across the desert, ultimately for Johnny's life. At another level are the various thugs and bullies Johnny meets in his travels, whether biker gangs or construction worker bullies or mobsters. Or there's a cult of death worshippers, which turns out to be a money making scam. Then there's the "Nuclear Man", an armoured and embittered scientist who has turned against nuclear power after his son-in-law was killed by an accident and his grandson was born deformed.

But as the series moves ever further from superheroics and back into horror, it often seems the real threat is the Ghost Rider, slowly asserting its own control and becoming ever more fierce, torturing foes almost for pleasure. Issue #37 is a partial homage to the origin of Robin, featuring a family of circus performers who get killed by the local mobster after the owner reneges on a debt; the sole survivor is a son who wants vengeance. But rather than taking in the boy as a sidekick, Johnny instead scares him away from summoning the Devil and, as the Ghost Rider, pursues the mobster to his death. It's a harsh reminder that Johnny is no great hero but a man burdened with a real curse. The reaction of those around him, especially the various women he meets, is mixed, with some scared off by him. Others are prepared to stay with him but Johnny is not prepared to put them at risk. There's one time when it seems he has found peace when he loses his memory and winds up as a mechanic for a female racing driver, but incurs the wrath of her foreman. Neither the amnesiac Johnny nor the Ghost Rider is able to access the other and it seems as though Johnny is at peace. However the rival foreman attacks him, restoring his true memory and forgetting his alternative life altogether. Another chance at escape comes when the magician Azaziah splits Johnny and the Ghost Rider; however the two prove unable to survive without each other, finding their energy levels much drained, and so Johnny has to perform the spell to reunify them. Later, after losing his title in the competition with Flagg Fargo, he briefly turns to drink in the hope of "keeping the demon at bay" but it doesn't have the desired effect.

Overall this volume offers more than it seems at first. Most of it may lack a supporting cast or recurring foes, but it shows a good way to handle the wandering hero who brings help to those he meets on his travels whilst at the same time balancing his curse. And the whole relationship between Johnny and the demon is steadily built up over these adventures as he steadily loses control and finds the biggest monster around is within him. The backdrop works well, making for a good latter-day western. It's easy to see where the first movie found much of its inspiration. It's just a pity the Handbook entries and back cover give away spoilers.

Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 2

Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 2 contains issues #26-52 and annuals #2-3. Many of the regular issues are written by Marv Wolfman; others are by Roger Slifer, Tom DeFalco, David Anthony Kraft, Ralph Macchio, Peter Gillis, Alan Kupperberg, Bill Mantlo, Mary Jo Duffy, John Byrne and Steven Grant. The art is by a mixture of Ron Wilson, John Buscema, Ernie Chan, John Byrne, Bob Hall, Alan Kupperberg, Chic Stone, Frank Miller and Jim Craig, with both Kupperberg and Byrne each writing & drawing a single issue. One annual is written by Wolfman and drawn by Sal Buscema whilst the other is written and drawn by Jim Starlin. With so many creators a separate post is invariably needed to carry some of the labels.

As is standard for team-up titles, here is the list of the guest stars in each issue.

26. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
27. Deathlok
28. Sub-Mariner
29. Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu
30. Spider-Woman
31. Mystery Menace
32. Invisible Girl
33. Modred the Mystic
34. Nighthawk
35. Skull the Slayer
36. Mr Fantastic
Annual 2. Spider-Man
37. Matt Murdock
38. Daredevil
39. The Vision
40. Black Panther
41. Brother Voodoo
42. Captain America
43. Man-Thing
Annual 3. Nova
44. Hercules
45. Captain Marvel
46. Hulk
47. The Yancy Street Gang
48. Jack of Hearts
49. Doctor Strange
50. The Thing
51. Beast, Ms. Marvel, Nick Fury & Wonder Man
52. Moon Knight

Once again we have a mixture of big names who've been around since the early Silver Age and some of Marvel's newer 1970s heroes but also some imaginative steps have been taken to provide co-stars, whether they're a one-off monster in issue #31, Daredevil's alter ego in his day job as a lawyer in #37 or long-time supporting characters the Yancy Street Gang. Part of this is driven by a great use of ongoing storylines, with the first two-thirds of the volume taken up by a succession of multi-parters that flow well from one issue to another, handling the guest cast in a variety of ways. But also the Thing's character seems to have been slightly refined, and so Ben Grimm now much more likeable, making it easier to enjoy his adventures. Whereas Marvel Team-Up has tended to be a reasonably equal pairing of Spider-Man (or occasionally the Human Torch or the Hulk), Marvel Two-in-One is now working much more as a Thing series with guest stars coming in an out. There are, however, some exceptions to this.

Annual #2 begins with a caption that states: "Wait!! Don't read this story until you check out Avengers Annual #7, now on sale." Yet in all the many reprinting of the issue that I'm aware of (and that's quite a lot), this is the only one to appear without the Avengers annual by its side. There was a five year gap between this volume's publication and that of either Essential Avengers volume 8 or Essential Warlock volume 1, both of which carry the Avengers annual. Consequently we have here just the very last part of not only the story of Thanos's assault on the stars but also of Jim Starlin's whole Warlock saga and one of the most memorable of Spider-Man stories in which he is the catalyst for saving the Earth. But amidst all this the Thing is somewhat lost, despite being the regular star of the series. Here he's reduced to a virtual sidekick for first Spider-Man and then Thor, and doesn't directly contribute to the final outcome. It's as though he was only used so as to provide a spaceship to bring Spider-Man to the battle and then to be a piece of cannon fodder to drive home how powerful Thanos is when Spider-Man briefly chickens out. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of the annual not being handled by the regular creative team, or of being the conclusion to a wider saga. Either can be a perfectly workable approach on their own, but when combined they produce an issue that feels heavily like an intruder upon the series.

A rather smoother use of the series to end storylines from elsewhere without just taking over the book comes in issues #35 & #36, which see the wrapping up of the saga of Skull the Slayer, the star of a very brief 1970s Marvel series that I've never come across before. Skull the Slayer told the story of an ex-soldier and three somewhat reluctant companions who flew into the Bermuda Triangle and found themselves in a land of dinosaurs, aliens and cavemen. The wrap-up here feels quite natural, with Ben drawn into the events as he test pilots a plane on his way back from the UK and flies into the warp in the triangle. At least it feels natural from reading Marvel Two-in-One - I'd be interested to hear the perspective of Skull the Slayer fans as to how smooth a flow they found the resolution in another series.

As well as wrapping up some characters, the series also gave a heightened profile to some others in advance of their own titles. Both Moon Knight and Spider-Woman started out as villains but became heroes by the time of their own titles. Moon Knight had already made the shift by the time of his appearance here but is still an unknown quantity resulting in some tense dealings with Ben. Meanwhile Spider-Woman breaks off the shackles of Hydra by turning on them and siding with the Thing, and in the process she discovers that what she thought was her origin is in fact false, setting her up for her own ongoing title. And her appearance here slots into ongoing events quite well - reading a number of these issues multiple times from the differing perspectives of following both the host and guest stars, it's often the case that one is served rather better than the other and depending on which character has led one to the issue can wildly change the perspective on it. Here the storyline sees Ben combine a mission to get critical surgery for Deathlok (following earlier issues when Mentallo and the Fixer brought the cyborg back in time and controlled him with the aim of assassinating the US President) with a holiday with Alicia in the United Kingdom. Or at least what Americans think is the United Kingdom - the geography of London is reasonable if a little condensed but a lot of the locals speak as though they went to the Dick Van Dyke School of Accents and there's a slightly absurd subplot in which a former Nazi collaborator tries to recover wartime currency printing plates, as though the resultant notes would resemble those still in circulation. The scene subsequently shifts to leftover magic from Arthurian legends, but in fairness this was the time when Captain Britain was unleashed upon newsagents. All in all the saga puts Ben through the ringer, especially when Alicia is briefly transformed into a monstrous spider-like being and attacks him. Fortunately she is soon restored but in the meantime it's heartbreaking to see Ben attacked by her and unable to fully respond for fear of making it impossible to restore her.

Ben also encounters tragedy in issue #50 which sees the Thing on a quest to regain his human form by taking a solution back in time to when he was at an earlier stage of development. However his younger self doesn't quite realise what's going on at first, leading to the conflict, which provides the cover to the whole volume. The issue serves to tidy up some visual continuity related to Ben's developing form in the early years, but also brings up a great confusion about how time travel works in the Marvel universe. Here it's stated by Reed Richards that Ben's past is "immutable" and any attempt to alter history merely creates an alternative universe which has no effect on him. It's not entirely clear if this rule only applies to an individual messing with their own timeline or if it's a more general statement that time travel cannot effect history at all. Either way it's an interesting approach to explaining how fictional time travel works and the theory would be used to great effect in a very memorable Transformers storyline some years later (Target: 2006). The problem is that this is a rule that hasn't been consistently applied over the years, with many Marvel time travel stories either seeing a change to established history or else the time travellers wind up causing historical events to happen, examples of both of which can be seen in the first volume. Consequently a lot of Marvel fiction that uses time travel as anything other than a plot device to bring characters together has been highly confused because different stories have followed different rules and not all of them have stopped to spell out precisely which rules apply. As a result issue #50's importance has been diminished but it was nevertheless a brave attempt to bring order to chaos.

The other stories are a mixture, ranging from the fun such as issue #51's poker evening with the Beast, Ms. Marvel, Nick Fury & Wonder Man that gets interrupted by renegade army officer General Pollock's attack on S.H.I.E.L.D., to the rather forgettable such as annual #3 in which the Thing and Nova tackle the Monitors, an alien race who wiped out planets that do not meet up to their standards of perfection. It came out in the later stages of Nova's own title and is clearly a late attempt to boost the character's profile but it just sinks into the mire of overlong and forgettable annuals. Issue #44 is a team-up with Hercules in which he and the Thing tackle the monsters Y'Androgg, Krokarr and Manduu to free Zeus on Mount Olympus. Hercules is one of the more difficult characters to guest star because of the fantastic nature of his foes and exploits which can lead to rather outlandish tales, but here the problem is solved by having the adventure retold by Ben to children around a campfire, thus allowing for embellishments. Another fun tale comes in issue #46 as the Thing gets jealous of the Hulk's TV series and heads to Hollywood to get one of his own, only to wind up fighting a furious Hulk who has shown up to complain.

Other stories continue to offer a variety of threats and foes. In addition to those already mentioned, this volume sees foes from other series such as the Piranha from Sub-Mariner, the Jaguar Priest from Skull the Slayer, the Mad Thinker originally from Fantastic Four, Kinji Obatu who has now shed his identity of Dr Spectrum of the Squadron Sinister, first seen in the Avengers, the Cult of Entropy from Man-Thing now led by Victorious from Ka-Zar's strip in Astonishing Tales or Boss Baker the Skrull who lives as though he's a human 1930s gangster, originally seen in Fantastic Four. The series also creates some new enemies such as the elemental demons Fire, Aero, Hydro and Mud, or evolving the former leader of the Cult of Entropy into the Entropic Man. There's sorcerer Ennis Tremellyn and his slave Kemo, and ex-CIA mercenary Crossfire. The biggest foe introduced here is Machinesmith, although he would later be retconned into a pre-existing character. And there's even a daring move with a less than flattering portrayal of Idi Amin, the then dictator of Uganda, though others are the primary villains in that story. Then there's issue #34 when an ugly alien hatches from a rock and is confused. It tries to greet and help the humans, even rescuing children from a burning hospital. But then frightened parents shoot it dead. As Nighthawk says "Yeah, there's a monster here -- but who's the monster? Mister, who's the monster?" As well as various new foes, the series also introduces what would go on to be a significant new setting when issue #42 sees the first appearance of Project Pegasus, the advanced energy research facility that will go to play a big part in his life in later issues.

Overall this volume shows a series that has now found a distinctive niche. Although still not the primary series featuring the Thing, it has nevertheless managed to give the character a good range of adventures that stand on their own merits, making him more likeable than before whilst also giving an enhanced showing to many other characters. The clever ways by which storylines are allowed to run over multiple issues whilst bringing in new characters. The series is now functioning smoothly.

Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 2 - creator labels

Once again we have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.

Omitted material: Marvel Two-in-One 21

Left out of Essential Marvel Two-in-One volume 1 is issue #21, which features a team-up with the licensed character Doc Savage (previously seen in Giant-Size Spider-Man #3 so I won't describe him again here). The issue is written by Bill Mantlo and drawn by Ron Wilson.

With Doc Savage based in the 1930s and the Thing in the 1970s it takes some ingenuity to bring them together. The first half of the issue is a split narrative as Doc Savage and his aides Renny and Monk are visited by a woman frightened by her scientist husband's plans to tap the power of the stars to become immortal, with the equipment draining the city's energy. In the present day the couple's daughter comes to the Thing and the Human Torch with a similar tale of how her brother is trying to recreate his father's experiments with similar consequences. In both eras the heroes rush to the site, although only in the present day do they take the woman with them, where their flying craft is accidentally hit by the cannon's beam, deflecting the energy back. It creates a temporal anomaly that fuses father and son together into one being called Blacksun and brings all the heroes together as they have to stop Blacksun. Eventually his powers burn out and he collapses, with Doc Savage and his companions returned to their own time before the Thing could get an autograph from his hero.

Like a number of team-up comics where the title heroes are based in different times, this one spends quite a bit of time setting up a situation that can bring them together without leaving too much time for actual interaction between them. It's also restrained by limited and confusing information about just what Blacksun is trying to do or how exactly he gains his powers. Since this is critical to the story's resolution the result is rather unsatisfactory. We're left with a very brief encounter between the Thing and Doc Savage, with multiple sidekicks in tow, with even less time than usual to explore how the two work together. There have been other cross-time team-ups that do a much better job at bringing the two heroes together, whether by having the regular star timetravelling or the guest star catapulted to the regular era at the start of the tale. Alternatively a story can not have the heroes meet and instead show them fighting the same foe in different eras. But here the story tries to both at once and fails at both.

Essential X-Men volume 5

Essential X-Men volume 5 initially contained X-Men #180 to #198 and Annuals #7 & #8. Later editions have transferred Annual #7 to volume 4 and added the mini-series X-Men and Alpha Flight. Everything is written by Chris Claremont with the art mainly by John Romita Jr and a couple of fill-in issues drawn & co-plotted by Barry Windsor-Smith. Annual #7 is drawn by Michael Golden and Bret Blevins and #8 by Steve Leialoha. The mini-series is drawn by Paul Smith.

Unfortunately this volume represents the start of a period where the series begins to rather complicated and confusing, with a mixture of long running subplots and the curse of crossovers and tie-in titles. But this series alone can't be solely blamed for a worrying trend that began at Marvel in the mid 1980s whereby it becomes increasingly hard to follow an individual series without having to pick up multiple additional titles. The first obvious sign is when most of the X-Men are taken away to fight in Secret Wars and come back with new costumes that generally don't last very long and accompanied by a female dragon who grows in size. And the X-Men's account of their experience with the dragon on the alien world isn't exactly what gets shown in Secret Wars itself; a sign of the problem in creating a gap in the narrative and only filling it in afterwards. Meanwhile Kitty comes to grief whilst investigating the Massachusetts Academy but this storyline is told in the pages of the New Mutants and subsequent issues see various New Mutants appear without the greatest of introductions; it's not even clear if Rachel's arrival is partially told in that series. Later on a two part tale ties in with the battle against the Dire Wraiths but if you're not familiar with the premise from the pages of Rom then it's not too clear what's going on. At around the same time two of the team members are briefly absent from the main series because they're co-starring in the mini-series Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, which isn't included here. Then there's a crossover with Power Pack, although the X-Men only appear in the issue from their own series and it's structured as such that it can be read without the Power Pack ones. Towards the end of the volume comes the first crossover with Secret Wars II and Magneto is suddenly hanging around with the X-Men. And to top it all off there are references to adventures in issues to come of Marvel Fanfare. Amidst all this the references to the graphic novel Dazzler: The Movie are easy to follow without that book itself. For what it's worth Panini's pocketbook reprints of this era, which are currently only up to issue #194, have included several of the New Mutants issues, so both Kitty's mission and some of the characters are more familiar when they pass through the Uncanny X-Men issues, but none of the others.

The Power Pack and Secret Wars II crossovers are adjacent to each other and show two extreme approaches to how to handle the concept. Issue #195 could almost be an issue of Power Pack with the X-Men guest starring, and indeed none of the title team actually appears before the tenth page. A non-completist reprint series could quite easily leave this issue out without it being too noticeable. By contrast issue #196 just sees the Beyonder, in his earliest days on Earth, wandering through the events of the issue and observing, with few noticing his presence and none of the events are driven by his presence.

Also somewhat surplus to requirements are issues #190-191, which feature what is ultimately a brief alternate universe until the reset switch is hit. A decade later this approach would consume the entire franchise across twice as many months, but here we get a two part sequel to an old issue of Marvel Team-Up as Kulan Gath returns and transforms Manhattan into a Hyborian Age city. There are guest appearances by the New Mutants, the Avengers, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, but at times it's less than clear just who the primary stars are. The climax sees many familiar characters killed off in the final battle but then Doctor Strange and Illyana combine their magic to undo the whole thing, rendering it non-consequential and not even the few characters who retain their memories mention it again in the volume. This story would probably have been better placed as a mini-series or one-shot that could have been more broad ranged in its cast. Here it feels like another intruder on the general flow of events, even if in the reset timeline Gath's transformation is stopped by the arrival of new X-Men foe Nimrod.

The other major side-shows are the two annuals. Annual #7 is a particularly oddball issue but the final page reveals all - it came out during Assistant Editor's Month, when the regular editors were away at a convention, leaving the assistants in charge. In the regular title the month was marked solely by a one page story in place of the letters page, and this wasn't included in Essential X-Men volume 4 so it was easy to mix. However the annual more than makes up for it, putting the X-Men through a bizarre adventure as the Impossible Man goes rampaging through the Marvel universe, stealing a bizarre collection of items for a scavenger hunt and the X-Men seek to stop him, with the chase even going through the Marvel Bullpen. It's a pity that the cover doesn't explicitly warn the readers that it's part of the event, but it falls perfectly into the spirit of it. The Impossible Man is one of those creatures that it's very easy to get wrong, but when done in the right context the result can be good tongue in cheek fun. Unfortunately Annual #8 is one of the worst issues in the whole series. It's a science fiction fairy tale told by Illyana to the X-Men and New Mutants around a campfire, with Lockheed and Kitty in starring roles. Presumably Kitty's earlier fairy tale had proved popular at the time and so led to this follow-up, but the story is weak, inconsequential and has ridiculously cartoony art. It just hits all the wrong buttons and simply doesn't work.

 A much more serious side comes in the regular issues. Although there have been signs of it in individual stories in recent volumes, it's here that the theme of anti-mutant hatred becomes ever more prevalent, starting with the introduction in Congress of a Mutant Affairs Control Bill. Fear and hostility are widespread throughout the story, with bigots everywhere, ranging from the students who try to kill Professor X to the government agents commissioning and deploying weapons designed to strip a mutant of their powers. It's an ever more hostile world where casual fear and racism is rampant, to the point that even mugging victims are scared to be saved by the X-Men. The shadow of the dark world seen in Days of Future Past returns with the arrival in the present day of Rachel Summers and later Nimrod. Rachel may have landed in an alternate timeline from her own, but that doesn't make the danger any less real. Nor does it negate her memories of just what she did in her past.

We soon see the horror of Rachel's past through flashbacks to her days as a "hound", drugged and manipulated by the authorities who used her to track down other mutants. It's a chilling idea but fortunately it's established fairly quickly. By contrast there's an increasing presence of characters with mysterious backgrounds - not only do we have Wolverine but Rogue's past is coming through in dribs and drabs with the complication of Carol Danvers's memories confusing her and those around her. And then there's Nimrod, a robotic mutant hunter from the future that carves out a reputation in the present day as a popular vigilante.

Some characters go through journeys, with Professor X suffering a major assault by bigots, including some of the students on the university course he now teaches, and struggling to regain full control of his telepathic powers. Meanwhile Magneto's path to redemption continues as Xavier brings him in to help the X-Men, leading to the amazing but understated moment when a bullet is sent the way of a murderous bigot and it's only the master of magnetism who prevents it reaching its target. Storm goes through her own hell when in trying to save Rogue she's hit by a blast that strips her of her powers. As she recovers she falls for her rescuer Forge, a mutant Native American inventor, only to discover that he created the weapon. Subsequently she drifts through the world, slowly coming to terms with how everything has changed - even basics as adapting to the temperature around her are new. However her non-mutant skills are shown to the fore and she eventually returns to Kenya where she discovers her purpose in life in bridging the divide between cultures, in a quite philosophical issue that rounds out the volume. Storm's absence creates a vacuum of leadership, with Professor X's attempts at more fieldwork falling away and Nightcrawler finding himself a worried leader also facing religious conflict as he struggles to reconcile the existence of the Beyonder with his faith. In his temporary absence it's Kitty who comes to the fore as the best strategist. Her relationship with Colossus ends when she discovers he found another whilst away on the Beyonder's planet, and other X-Men such as Wolverine and Nightcrawler feel that Peter has been a jerk (another slight discontinuity with Wolverine's conclusions in Secret Wars itself that Colossus's feelings for the healer Zsaji were a by-product of how her alien power worked). Eventually he and Kitty settle as just friends.

The conflicts themselves are getting a bit repetitive with multiple encounters with the Juggernaut, even if the second involves Nimrod, the Hellfire Club and the Morlocks, even if some individual characters are being added such as Selene. There's also yet another return of Arcade, again in seeming conflict with Doctor Doom. There are some foes brought in from other series, such as the Dire Wraiths from Rom, Magus, the father of Warlock in the New Mutants (nothing to do with Adam Warlock or the Magus) or the Hellions from the New Mutants, including the revenge seeking younger brother of the original Thunderbird. That team now also include the first appearance in comics of Firestar, with her appearance ending in a sign that she's on the road to becoming a fully fledged hero.

The most recent editions of this volume have added the mini-series X-Men and Alpha Flight. Consisting of two giant sized issues they tell the story of "The Gift" as Loki seeks favour with Asgardian deities by giving humanity an amazing fountain that can grant them powers and transform them into perfect beings, offering the prospect of creating a utopia on Earth and ending all the problems. But it comes at a price as magical beings are slowly killed by it whilst the transformed humans are denied imagination. The X-Men and Alpha Flight jointly investigate the area and discover the stark choice of whether to accept such a solution or whether to retain what it is to be human; a question that divides the teams amongst themselves. Eventually they reject the gift but it's a painful outcome. This is doubly so for Rachel who would give anything to prevent the dark future she comes from, yet at the same time she discovers her own future is ever less likely to come to pass as her mother is already dead and her father's wife is pregnant but with a boy, not the only child she is. The story sees her first encounter with Cyclops, but it's ambiguous as to whether he's guessed that he is her father. The story is suitably epic for this kind of mini-series but without too much familiarity with the current status quo of Alpha Flight it can at times be confusing to follow some of their own troubles and dilemmas. Still it's good to see the story has at last been included here.

But overall this volume represents a series that is getting too complex for its own good and spawning too much of a franchise. It's a little hard to fault X-Men for the reproduction problems that have reported prevented any Essential New Mutants volumes, or the volumes for not carrying numerous limited series and crossovers that only have a partial bearing on the series. But for the contemporary reader it was necessary to purchase an ever increasing number of additional comics to stay abreast of everything, whilst at the same time continuity was getting over burdensome, with repetition and subplots dragging on forever. This volume represents the series taking a decisive turn for the worse.

Essential X-Men volume 4

The original edition of Essential X-Men volume 4 consists of Uncanny X-Men #162 to #179 and Annual #6. Later editions have transferred Annual #6 to volume 3 and added both annual #7 (which I'll look at with volume 5) and Marvel Graphic Novel #5 entitled "God Loves, Man Kills". The writing is all by Chris Claremont. The art on the regular issues sees the end of Dave Cockrum's second run, then a run by Paul Smith followed by the start of a run by John Romita Jr. Annual #6 is drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. The graphic novel is drawn by Brent Anderson.

The high octane excitement continues in this volume, with adventures ranging from an outer space battle with the Brood to smaller scale, more personal adventures such as Rogue's quest to join the X-Men to control her powers that are making her lie impossible. There aren't too many additions to the ever growing extended cast of allies and foes - the most significant are Madelyne Prior, Lockheed the alien dragon and the Morlocks, who include the likes of Callisto, Leech, Plague, Masque, Sunder and Healer. But rather than quantity the series focuses on quality, with each of the new arrivals making an impact in their own way. At the same time there's quite a lot of development of the existing characters.

At one extreme is Cyclops, who is establishing roots in multiple directions. Having already discovered that Corsair is his father, he now discovers his grandparents and in the process meets a surprising woman. Madelyne Pryor is a cargo pilot for his grandparents' company in Alaska - and the spitting image of Jean Grey. More amazingly she was the sole survivor of a plane crash at the very moment that Jean died. At this stage it's never cleared up whether Madelyne is somehow Jean reincarnated or if this just an amazing coincidence, but she and Scott rapidly fall for each other. Within just seven issues of meeting they get married and Scott both leaves the X-Men and declines his father's invitation to go off into space on adventures with the Starjammers. Instead he seemingly retires, flying off with Madelyne to enjoy a happily ever after.

Meanwhile Storm undergoes developments of her own, including temporarily bonding with a young Acanti, a giant fish that flies through space. Subsequently Storm seems to be losing her refinement of her powers and then she decides to change her look, adopting a very 1980s leather costume and mohawk, to Kitty's horror. Kitty herself is continuing to grow and acting on her feelings for Colossus. At times she is highly suggestive to him, a rather disturbing point considering she is only fourteen years old and fortunately Colossus goes no further than kissing. However Kitty gains an affectionate companion of a different kind when she encounters a small alien dragon on another planet; subsequently the dragon comes to Earth and is dubbed "Lockheed", regularly staying by her side and deploying his laser power to help her.

But the biggest developments come with Carol Danvers and Rogue. Carol has been hanging around with the X-Men ever since Rogue stole her powers, but now the Brood subject her to accelerated evolution and hybrid nature results in her gaining the powers of a star as the being Binary. It's a major step forward but not long afterwards she departs for space and so there's little opportunity for further development as she continues to grow her emotions once more. However before she goes she briefly confronts Rogue once more when the latter turns up at the mansion seeking help. Rogue is now portrayed as much younger than in her earlier appearances and very much has the feel of a young, vulnerable woman trying to come to terms with herself and to evade being used by others. This leads to an early fight with Mystique and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, but Rogue makes clear what her free will is. She also has a rapid baptism of fire when she and Wolverine are the only available X-Men to evade the effects of poison in Japan and Rogue puts her life on the line to save Wolverine, who in turn lends her his healing power. Later on she again risks her own life to help save Colossus and the other X-Men come to accept her. Meanwhile Professor Xavier undergoes a major transformation when his body is destroyed by the Brood but his mind is transferred into a cloned one with fully functioning legs. Although his mind and powers take time to adjust, it seems he will now be able to play a much more active role in future adventures.

This volume comes from the period when the series began to spawn a number of spin-offs. The most obvious ongoing one was the New Mutants, founded whilst the X-Men were away in space, but in general the two teams manage to stay out of the way of each other's adventures apart from a brief fight when the X-Men return from space and discover strangers in the mansion. Beyond that and an issue where Kitty is briefly set to be transferred to the New Mutants until she demonstrates how far she's already come (with the New Mutants themselves noticeably absent), plus the occasional mention and cameo, the New Mutants are almost as distant from these issues as the Defenders. More noticeable was the rise of the limited series, with both Wolverine and Magik (Illyana - Colossus's sister) receiving one. Neither is included here but both are referenced. In particular the Wolverine limited series is followed up on in issues #172-173 which feel almost as though they should have been part of the limited series (and are sometimes collected with it) but it ran out of space. Given the practice in more recent volumes - Essential Defenders volume 7 springs most readily to mind - I wonder if the limited series would have been included had this volume come out in more recent years. (Although there have been some modifications to the contents of the Essential X-Men volumes for new editions, there may not have been enough space to crowbar in a whole extra four issues as well as the graphic novel.) Consequently Wolverine doesn't get as much good material as usual, but both his desperate solo flight from the Brood and his wedding where his bride jilts him, having been convinced he is not worthy, both give him depth on either side of the series. The Magik limited series is rather less noticeable by its absence and seems to cover her missing years in Limbo that are alluded to here.

There are other signs of wider developments at Marvel impacting on the series here. Issue #167 contains one of the oddest scenes in the whole volume as Lilandra learns of events in Fantastic Four where Reed Richards saved Galactus's life and immediately transmits a warning that he will be prosecuted for the subsequent destruction of any known inhabited planet. This isn't remotely relevant to current events in Uncanny X-Men, and hardly a pressing matter for Lilandra who is at this stage a deposed monarch in exile and, as she admits herself, in no position to be rushing around issuing warnings in the name of intergalactic war. It just feels like a gratuitous snipe by Chris Claremont at his former collaborator John Byrne. I was surprised to see that this scene had originally seen print several months before Byrne's better known snipe in Fantastic Four when he declared an earlier Uncanny X-Men appearance by Doctor Doom to have been a slightly out of character Doombot that the real Doom casually disposed of. In the normal retellings of the feud and how it impacted on the comics themselves it's usually Byrne who gets depicted as the proactive antagonistic one, beginning with the Doombot incident, but here is a sign that it seems to have started even earlier and possibly with Claremont.

What is getting a little annoying are the constant references to Phoenix, especially as it's now a few years since her death. They come in multiple forms, especially with Madelyne's resemblance to Jean Grey, but the most blatant come when Storm sees what looks like the image of the Phoenix force in an explosion, and even more so when Mastermind manipulates Madelyne into impersonating a resurrected Phoenix. However the resolution proves crucial as Cyclops saves Madelyne and fully comes to accept Jean is gone, saying a final goodbye at her grave before going on to marry Madelyne. Hopefully this will bode well for future volumes. But just as one irritation seems to be on the way out another is looming with the continued teases about just what Nightcrawler's connection to Mystique is. It was first raised back at the end of volume 2 but is now becoming a never ending subplot with a seemingly obvious solution that she is in fact his real mother. It's one thing to have something never explicitly stated, but the way this is played it feels more like eternally unfinished business.

Included at the end of the original edition of this volume is annual #6, but it feels extremely inconsequential to the series, and its initial absence from volume 3 (and catch-up placement here) has not been noticeable in the slightest. The story sees the return of Dracula and his final showdown with Rachel van Helsing, with Dracula's daughter Lilith thrown in for good measure. It may be resolving leftover matters from the Tomb of Dracula and also following up on Dracula's earlier appearance in X-Men, but the X-Men themselves feel rather out of place in a rather confused storyline focused on vengeance and possession. Still as an annual it's easy to overlook this awkward tale and move onwards.

Also potentially easy to overlook is an addition to recent editions, Marvel Graphic Novel #5, entitled "God Loves, Man Kills". Released at about the same time as issue #167, it shows signs of having been created much earlier, not least because Kitty is here using the codename "Ariel" that she in fact rejected in the regular series, and also wearing a different costume from the norm. The story focuses heavily on anti-mutant prejudice as a zealous preacher declares them unholy and launches a crusade to purify the human race, using Professor Xavier's powers. In the struggle the X-Men find themselves allying with Magneto despite their differences. The world depicted in this tale is much darker than the comics, with the preacher's "Purifiers" seemingly unstoppable as they go about their mission. It's a world of dark alleys, of gangs who try to rape Kitty as payment for protecting her, where people get shot and bleed, where two little children are chased to a playground and murdered, and where a well-connected charismatic speaker can easily sway the crowds. It's one of the better examples of what the graphic novel format can do, presenting a deeper story free of the shackles of the Comics Code Authority, but also keeping it sufficiently standalone that it was not necessary for contemporary readers to pay out almost ten times the price of a regular issue, or for readers then and now to have to track down a harder to find format.

Regardless of the rotating nature of the annuals and graphic novel across different editions of this volume, the regular issues remain strong and solid, showing both diversity of new creation and a willingness to build on existing successful elements. The team's line-up is kept reasonably intact with only Cyclops retiring and Rogue coming on board, allowing for the character development that can only really happen when there's a stable cast. Although some individual elements may irritate they don't detract from the overall thrust of the series that keeps moving forward, offering exciting adventures but also always making the reader care about each and every one of the characters. Nor is there much requirement to obtain additional comics just to know what’s going on, with the spin-off New Mutants title wisely concentrating on a separate line-up of characters, though Wolverine's limited series could have been better explained, especially as it's followed up on but not included here. But overall this volume maintains the series's strong momentum that has been running since the revival, a astonishing achievement after so many years.

Essential X-Men volume 3

Essential X-Men volume 3 first contained Uncanny X-Men #145 to #161 and Annuals #3 to #5. Later editions have seen Annuals #3 & #4 transferred to volume 2; Annual #6 transferred from volume #4 (where I'll look at it) and the addition of Avengers Annual #10. The writing is all by Chris Claremont and most of the art by Dave Cockrum; other issues are drawn by Jim Sherman, Bob McLeod, Bill Sienkiewicz and Brent Anderson. The annuals are drawn by George Pérez, John Romita Jr and Brent Anderson. The Avengers annual is drawn by Michael Golden.

This is predominantly a volume of consolidation and development rather than creation, with very few significant first appearances. Dave Cockrum returns to the series and there's some more space opera with the Shi’Ar but otherwise there's a continued focus on the core characters within a world that is growing steadily more hostile to mutants. There are very few changes to the team - Angel storms out in protest over Wolverine's presence and Cyclops comes back on, but otherwise it's a period of stability for the line-up. We get more use of past X-Men in the form of reservists, with Ice-Man, Polaris and Havok all pressed into service for one adventure whilst Banshee appears more and more in a supporting staff role; his powers not having restored themselves. Another supporting character comes in the form of Carol Danvers, now depowered following events in Avengers annual #10, who hangs around with and helps the X-Men for the time being.

However we get a number of character developments, with Cyclops and Sprite especially benefiting from strong focuses. Within these issues Cyclops and Corsair of the Starjammers finally discover that they are son and father, leading to the inevitable confrontation about why Corsair never came after his son in the orphanage. It's a tense situation at first but soon Scott accepts that his father naturally believed both Scott and Alex had died when their parachute caught fire, whilst the horrific treatment and death of their mother had further distanced Corsair from Earth. The family reunion is handled well and helps add to Scott's character growth as he becomes ever more a strong individual, unfettered by the trauma of his childhood or the loss of Jean. The early issues see him marooned on an island with Lee Forrester, the captain of the ship he signed aboard before they were swept out to sea. Although the island scenario itself drags on for a few too many issues, it shows Scott slowly discovering another woman and moving onwards.

Also growing rapidly is Kitty Pryde, though she retains her youthful optimism and role as the team's little sister. Her crush on Colossus is becoming a relationship, with surprisingly nothing said about their different ages. Otherwise she shows enthusiasm and at times is at the core of a plot's resolution. However one thing that is off-putting is her constantly changing costumes in an attempt to get more individuality than the original style X-Men outfit she is given pre-graduation. At one point she comes up with an outfit that may have resembled early 1980s sparkly fashions but looks hideous and is mercifully subdued by the black and white. On another level she is growing ever closer to both Storm and her dance teacher Stevie Hunter. Issue #148 sees the three on a girls' night out, together with guest stars Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman and the Dazzler, which is interrupted by the introduction of the lonely mutant Caliban who comes searching for company, causing panic and chaos but also making Kitty realise how some mutants like Nightcrawler cannot help their strange appearance and she shouldn't be so uncomfortable around them.

But the biggest developments come for one of the X-Men's greatest foes. Issue #150 brings some of the strongest material yet for Magneto, with further enhancements in a flashback in issue #161. We get the clearest statement yet that he sees himself as a warrior defending his people, the mutants, making him a Malcolm X figure much more so than before. His background is also filled out with the exploration of his drive coming from the horrors he endured in the Holocaust. Rejecting Xavier's vision of mutant-human co-existence as unrealistic, he instead seeks to bring about mutant superiority, securing peace through security. Although there have been hints of this in some of his earlier appearances, we now have a clearly rounded vision of the character that moves him away from the run of the mill would-be world conquering supervillains and into a much more complex character. Yet the same issue also starts him down a new path when he thinks he's killed Sprite. Earlier he had no regrets about sinking a Soviet nuclear submarine that had fired upon his island, yet now that he thinks he's killed a child, he realises he's become like the monsters of his childhood, the guards at Auschwitz who joked as they herded people to their deaths, their lives meaning nothing to them. The horror that he has become a monster to the innocents he sought to protect and the very thing he hated and despised is a striking moment for the character. Was it also meant to be a subtle wider comment about events in the real world? Whatever the external intentions, there is a hint that he changed forever though it is not followed up on within these pages.

Magneto's shift comes not long after the X-Men's first encounter with another world-conquering villain from the early Silver Age. It's quite a surprise that the X-Men haven't clashed with Doctor Doom before now, given how much he's appeared all over the Marvel universe over the years. Here he seems rather subdued, being in exile from his kingdom and operating in a strange alliance with Arcade, with the gamesmaster also Doom's prisoner. Though there's a brief scene with Storm that sees the two slightly drawn towards each other, overall it's a rather disappointing use of such a major foe. Equally weakly handled is Dracula, who shows up for a single issue when he tries to take Storm as a mate, but there's none of the awe and majesty from the character's own series.

The Shi’Ar epic brings the first appearance of the Sidri, a monstrous gestalt alien species, and the fearsome insect race the Brood, as well as Deathbird, previously seen in Ms. Marvel, the sister of Lilandra. She's not the only foe of Carol's to come over, with Rogue also appearing, following on from the Avengers annual. Meanwhile a flashback to the younger days of Professor X and Magneto shows their struggle with Baron von Strucker and a nascent Hydra, giving Magneto his first encounter with leftover Nazi villains. An adventure into a magical realm brings the team into conflict with Belasco, previous seen in Ka-Zar, and new demon S'ym. It's a dark place in which the X-Men find time does not function as normal, bringing them into conflict with older versions of themselves. At the end Colossus's sister Illyanna is briefly lost for what is only seconds for the X-Men but a whole seven years for her. Having gone from six to thirteen, losing much of her childhood in that realm, must be a horrific experience and will hopefully be explored further in later volumes.

One aspect of the series that is slightly stating to irritate are the long drawn out subplots, especially as some of them keep overlapping on multiple Essential volumes and so take an age. Cyclops spends half a year lost on a desert island and then later the conflict with the Brood is stretched out with Professor X mentally wounded for many months. He is cured in the final issue in the volume but then Deathbird and the Brood return in a cliffhanger, with the latter planning to use the mutants as hosts for breeding. Unfortunately the remaining space is then taken up with other, less consequential material.

Lurking at the back of the volume (at least in the original edition) are three annuals. With #1 & #2 having been all-reprint specials in the wilderness years, these are the first original specials for the X-Men and show a variety of foes and guest stars. Two of them feature Arkon, first as an enemy, albeit with noble motives seeking to restore his world, and later as an ally when the Badoon invade; the Fantastic Four also guest star in the latter story. Meanwhile the other one features a trip into what is supposedly Hell, resembling the depiction in Dante's Inferno, with Doctor Strange guest starring and a fight with Minos, a being from Dante's poem. Reading all three annuals back to back, as per the original edition's presentation, it's easy to see why the whole format is so often dismissed and/or overlooked, including sometimes by collected editions. (Not only had Essential X-Men volume 2 left out two annuals, but at about the same time that this volume was making up for this omission, Essential Spider-Man volume 3 was missing out another pair.) None is drawn by the regular series artist of the day and none of the events are mentioned in the regular title. The middle annual may explore some of Nightcrawler's past and reveal his current girlfriend to be his adoptive sister and childhood sweetheart in disguise but it's still easy to blink and miss it. Nor is there any connection with the hint in the previous volume that he and Mystique are related. Placed at the rear of this volume, like an obligatory appendix, they feel like they were almost forced upon it and are being sidelined as much as possible. None feels like a typical, if extended, adventure of the type seen in the contemporary regular series so the annuals don't even work as one-off introductory specials. Of course the same charge can be levelled at many, many annuals for many other series, but it's rare to get three all at once and so the problem stands out the more. Worse still having so many at once has restricted the number of regular issues contained in this volume and possibly increased the necessity of ending on a cliffhanger, one that would be left hanging for nearly three years before volume 4 came along.

Later editions of this volume have also included Avengers annual #10 and it's easy to see why given that both Carol Danvers and Rogue go on to make significant appearances in the regular issues in both this volume and later ones. I've never been too clear as to how much of the issue reflects Claremont's original plans for Ms. Marvel and just when he conceived his plans for Rogue, but here we get a conclusion to Carol's conflict with Mystique that had been building and building and building and building in her own series (Claremont's long-running subplots have not been confined to the X-Men titles). Ms. Marvel gets put through the wringer once more as her powers and mind are absorbed by Rogue; with Professor X's help she regains some of the latter but is left a broken woman trying to put her life back together. The epilogue allows both her and Claremont to confront the Avengers and their writers about how callous they were when she was kidnapped and raped, but otherwise the bulk of the annual is given over to introducing a new foe who takes down the most powerful Avengers quite quickly. Other than the epilogue wouldn't it perhaps have been better to tell this story with the X-Men in their own annual? It would certainly have made a far stronger and more memorable offering than that year's team-up with the Fantastic Four against the Badoon, and the subsequent use of both Carol and Rogue in the regular series would have given the annual a lasting significance. Still that error of placing has now been corrected with its inclusion here.

Although more run of the mill than the two previous Essential X-Men volumes, and limited by the need to include the various annuals, this volume continues to show a series based strongly on character development and a distinct scenario. It takes in a diverse range of locations and threats but manages to stay consistent and true to its core characters, continuing to make them feel real and worth caring about. This is a series that has settled in a clear permanent role for the long run.

Essential X-Men volume 2

Essential X-Men volume 2 originally contained X-Men #120-144. (The adjective Uncanny was formally added to the series's legal title from #142 onwards; however it had been present in the cover logo since #114 apart from the odd issue that skipped it, a practice that continued for many years afterwards.) Later editions have transferred Annuals #3-4 over from volume 3; however I'll continue the practice of looking at such material where it originally appeared. Chris Claremont scripts the entire volume with John Byrne drawing and co-plotting all but the final issue which is by Brent Anderson.

It's impossible to ignore the significance of the stories in this volume, representing the period when the X-Men broke out of being a niche cult title and became one of Marvel's biggest sellers. Much has been written about the "Dark Phoenix saga", which dominates all the different covers used for this volume, whilst this month sees the release of a movie version of "Days of Future Past". But there's a lot more than just those two tales within these pages. It's also a run in which there are a number of introductions, including a few that would go on to have their own series.

The volume kicks off with the debut of Alpha Flight, as the Canadian government (Pierre Trudeau appears on panel delivering orders to the now renamed Vindicator) tries to recover Wolverine through the deployment of its own team of superheroes. The team isn't explored in any great detail, but they show potential for future use, although how they explain the failure of their specially designed prison van to contain Wolverine isn't shown. Earlier they force the jet carrying the X-Men to Calgary, allowing John Byrne to draw his home city and show Canada as it really is, rather than cliched US stereotypes. Right at the end of the volume Alpha Flight (well half of them) reappear as Wolverine returns to Canada, with Nightcrawler in tow, in the hope of putting an end to their pursuit of him. They all battle the Wendigo in the northern Canadian wilderness - when has any hero gone there and not found the Wendigo? - before departing on good terms with Vindicator promising to get Wolverine's resignation accepted by the government. However upon returning to Ottawa, Vindicator is told by Trudeau that Department H and Alpha Flight are being disbanded, due to both costs and fears about superheroes. This serves as both closure to Wolverine's fugitive status but also opens up the possibility to use Alpha Flight as an independent team. (I'm also surprised that the comic managed to show Trudeau in person on this occasion as it was published just a couple of months after his surprise return to power. Imagine the mess if they'd drawn Joe Clark instead.)

Dazzler is introduced in issue #130 and I don't know whose idea it was to make her a mutant but it seems clear there was very little background developed for her beyond "singer who can project light" and her appearance here does little to flesh her out apart from establishing her as a mutant. It's not exactly a debut to set the world on fire. The preceding issue is more significant for the series in the long term as it introduces Kitty Pryde, an intelligent thirteen year old who is discovering the ability to become intangible. A young kid sidekick can go spectacularly wrong but here she brings a degree of optimism to the team as well as helping to restate principles as she learns them. However one problem comes from not nailing down a single standard name for her from the outset - she rejects the name "Ariel" (and so denies the opportunity to make endless jokes about washing powder) and instead adopts "Sprite" but she's just as likely to be called "Kitty Pryde" as anything else and the result can limit her ability to stay memorable. Still she is a breath of fresh air that reminds us of the ongoing mission to find and train mutants. Otherwise the cast broadly stays the same throughout these issues bar the formalisation of Phoenix's return and her subsequent death, the retirement of Banshee due to a throat injury, and Cyclops's decision to leave the team following Phoenix's death, though the final issue in the volume shows his continuous movements.

At the start the cast are still split, with Professor X, Phoenix and the Beast believing the others died in Antarctica and vice versa, and it takes several issues before they all finally discover they've all survived. In the meantime Cyclops is steadily coming into his own and also becoming more at ease with women, briefly dating Colleen Wing but when Scott and Jean discover each other is alive this doesn't cause too many problems. In the interim though I'm surprised Colleen puts up with Scott talking a lot about his ex, or for that matter she's one of several girlfriends captured by Arcade. The other romantic interests are less developed, with Colossus's feelings for Storm toned down to the level of adopted siblings, but Kitty develops a crush on him and in a glimpse of the future they are shown as married. At another level Professor Xavier and Lilandra find themselves on opposite sides when aliens from across the universe assemble to tackle the Dark Phoenix, and although it isn't spelt out they seem to have effectively separated.

Guest appearances are surprisingly limited here, and mainly confined to those from either previous Claremont-Byrne collaborations or earlier issues of the X-Men. Cyclops may briefly date Colleen Wing from Power Man and Iron Fist but otherwise there are few of note. Spider-Man turns up at the start of an issue to try and warn the X-Men that Arcade is back, having clashed with him during the Claremont-Byrne run on Marvel Team-Up, and the final issue, post-Byrne, sees an appearance by the Man-Thing, whose last solo stories had been scripted by Claremont. Meanwhile the Beast, Havok and Lorna Dane all show up for the duration of the Proteus storyline, and later the Angel gets caught up in the Dark Phoenix saga and never quite leaves. Ice-Man's sole appearance is at Jean's funeral.

With more epic length story telling the foes battled in this volume are limited but usually either new to the series or assembled in a new grouping. Early on the team battle Proteus, Moria MacTaggert's mutant son who can warp reality and take over bodies whenever his current one burns out, and then later they come up against the Hellfire Club, a fictionalised version of the real world club Its "Inner Circle" includes various foes including new ones such as Sebastian Shaw and Emma Frost and returning ones such as Mastermind, under his real name of Jason Wyngarde. Later on the X-Men fight a new incarnation of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Led by Mystique, previously seen in Ms. Marvel, the team includes the Blob and three new mutants - Destiny, Pyro and Avalanche. Mystique offers further mystery when Nightcrawler finds her familiar but she just tells him to ask his mother. There's a couple of foes from other series, with both Arcade and D'Spayre brought over from the pages of Marvel Team-Up where they'd been introduced by the same creative team. And then there's Senator Robert Kelly, a potential Presidential candidate who is pushing towards legislation that would introduce controls on mutants, with the horrifying prospect of where that could lead. It's a reminder that not all threats come in costumed action form.

Nor do they always come from the opposite side. For by far the best known storyline in this volume involves one of the X-Men going rogue. The "Dark Phoenix saga" has been referenced many times and adapted for both television and film. It's easy to see why - it's a tale of an ordinary(ish) person gaining ultimate power and eventually going out of control with devastating consequences. At the time there hadn't been that much exploration of the ultimate danger inherent from superheroes but here we get a tale of corruption, redemption and sacrifice. The storyline is steadily built up with Jean slowly corrupted by the power of Mastermind, who has no idea of what he's unleashing. The resulting Dark Phoenix is a scary demonstration of all the worst potential, going on a destructive course, lashing out at those closest to her and even casually destroying a whole solar system. And just when it seems as though Jean has been saved and the Phoenix side of her locked away, the wider universe come to execute her, forcing the X-Men into a duel with the Imperial Guard in which it becomes clear that Phoenix is not as confined as thought. Ultimately Jean does the only thing she can to permanently end the threat and commits suicide, showing humanity triumphing over the corruption of power. She was by no means the first comic character to be killed off, but in the past this had usually happened at the end of a title's run or else when a character had been confined to limbo for years. To kill off such a key part of the team, one who'd been around almost continuously since the team began seventeen years earlier, was an incredible move. The impact on the rest of the cast is shown in subsequent issues as characters' thoughts frequently turn to Jean/Phoenix. In the wider industry it helped to put X-Men firmly on the map.

However it's "Days of Future Past" which is inevitably the storyline that will attract the most attention at this precise time. It follows the classic time-travel plot of going back in time to alter the future for the better. But here we get a dark vision of the future that in 1980 was much closer to reality than many may now realise. The United States has become a brutal police state, with most technology breaking down and civilisation slowly sinking into brutal primitivism. The population has been brutally classified into multiple groups, with strict controls on breeding. Mutants are set apart, mostly confined to designated areas, and are forced to endure terrible suffering. This may have been presented as a world 33 years into the future, but it has clear similarities to the contemporary situation in apartheid South Africa. The brief history that Kate Pryde tells the X-Men reinforces the metaphor with a number of subtle parallels to the history of how apartheid was steadily introduced and "justified" as a response to whipped up fear. The scenes really personalise the impact with moments such as a row of gravestones with familiar names, the desperate struggle of recognisable albeit aged faces, and the horror as they are rapidly cut down. And whilst Kate's mission was successful in preventing the assassination that is believed to have started the chain if events, we're never actually shown what the resulting future now is, just a single page in the present suggesting that the Sentinels will be revived and deployed anyway. That helps to reinforce the uncertainty and fear for the long term and helps to reinforce the elements of bigotry and oppression that have hitherto been underused in the series.

The following issue, #143, also feels like the inspiration behind a film, albeit a very different one. A decade before Kevin McCallister found himself Home Alone and had to fight off intruders in the house at Christmas, Kitty Pryde had to do exactly the same thing. The issue also feels like a homage to Alien with the N’Garai demon resembling the alien whilst Kitty herself resembles a young Sigourney Weaver, desperately racing through the mansion to find some way, any way to defeat the creature. In the process she causes no end of expensive damage, but it's a key rite of passage for the character.

And this volume represents a major passage for the series. Between the dynamic art of John Byrne and the intense, thoughtful scripts of Chris Claremont, the result is a complex series that maintains strong, well-defined characters at its core and puts them through a complex and varied set of situations that try and test them immensely. Some of the storylines are better known than others, but taken together they show good ongoing development, in which all the characters are steadily built up. Not all their pasts are revealed at once - in particular elements about Wolverine such as his adamantium skeleton and revelations from his past are only dropped in as and when they come up - but the overall result is that all the X-Men continue to feel like real people and the reader wants to keep reading to find out what happens to them. By the end of the volume Claremont has been scripting the series for fifty issues, a surprising achievement already, even before one considers how long he would go on for. Such long runs often give a title a good degree of stability that help to refine it when the original take on the concept has floundered or got lost in a sea of ever changing creative teams who each try to change everything before moving on. Here it works wonders and so finally X-Men was a title that was here to stay for the long run.